Visit Museum Wayang really open my knowledge about puppet, not only from my country but from all over the world.

Once upon a day my mom ask me to visit Jakarta, the capital city of Indonesia. She knows that I dislike that city very much, but she also knows that I like to buy piringan hitam (vinyl) on jalan Surabaya, Menteng, Jakarta. So she promised to buying me a lot of vinyl if I go with her and my dad to Jakarta. After have fun searching and buying Led Zeppelin, Ray Charles, Olivia Newton John, etc now it’s my turn to accompany my mom and dad to Pasar Seni Ancol. My mom are Minangnese, the majority tribe of Sumatera Barat (West Sumatera) but she was grown up in Jakarta. After visit Pasar Seni my parent offer me to go to Kota Tua because they know I love to do photo hunt. When we arrive at Kota Tua in the afternoon, my parent decide to wait at the car and give me one hour to do photo hunt because we want to pick up my sister who watched Korean K-pop boyband “Big Bang” who held their gig in Jakarta at the previous night.

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I enter Museum Wayang and suddenly the Museum keeper calling at me to buy the entrance fee. Whoops, I thought it was free entry museum. Thanks God I only had to paid Rp 2000 ($ 1 = Rp 9600). This museum are quite underexposure lighting condition so I choose B mode to capture the first puppet that I saw at the entrance.

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Then I passing through the outside room at the inside of the museum. The name Jan Pieters Zoen Coen on the wall was really surprised me. He was famous cruel Dutch colonial figure, even Dono the famous Indonesian comedian mention him at one of his anger to his friend at one of Warkop DKI movie : “Dasar keturunan Jan Pieters Zoen Coen”. It made me want to wikipediaing the corelation between him and this museum.

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After passing this outside room inside the museum, I enter again the other indoor room of this museum. There are some iconic and classic Wayang from Jawa that I didn’t know the name but very familiar with their shape. But don’t worry because their name, origin, etc are provide right in front of their place.

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Oh no, there are a sign no camera allowed at the next entrance room, but I’ll try ;)

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Yes, no one prohibited me to snap the puppet with my Horizon Perfekt ^_

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There are also some of puppet which are from all over the world such as China, India, France, etc.

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My favorite are ofcourse Wayang Golek from my origin Jawa Barat. I also admired the real Si Unyil, iconic puppet show for children in 80s-90s era. But they’re more scary at this place.

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And the most scariest from all of Indonesian puppet are Sigale-gale, the doll from Sumatera Utara which use to calling the spirit of ancestor. Suddenly I feel not comfortable to stay too long there.

Photo by hervinsyah